At the new House of Blues last night: Jay-Z. And three blocks away, Books-A-Million and a roman-numeral flagship version of Forever 21 are now open! But between them in Downtown’s brand-new mixed-use street-hovering mall? Not much going on . . . yet:
The developers of the three block long Houston Pavilions said the pavilions will be the place to go, but for now it’s mainly a lot of space.
“It’s different because you don’t have a lot of nightlife down here. But with the restaurant, the Foundations Room, and the music hall at the House of Blues, we are going to bring people to the Pavilions,” [said] Deb Eybers, President of the House of Blues.
They won’t just bring people. Tenants will also be coming to the area. But for now there are just a handful of businesses.
More are slated to come on line in December and even more in the spring. Then the complex will be at 60 percent capacity.
The complex extends from Main St. to Caroline between Dallas and Polk — only a few surface-parking-lot blocks from the Toyota Center and Discovery Green.
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The first two stories of Houston Pavilions are for retail; entertainment venues are mostly on the third floor. Also available: pretty much the entire 200,000 sq. ft. of space in the office tower above.
- Downtown Houston’s Pavilions open, but mostly empty [KHOU]
- Pavilions aims to give downtown a new dimension [Houston Chronicle]
- Retail Floor Plan [Houston Pavilions]
Photos: Flickr users mlsnp (top 2) and cameraman1006 (bottom; license)
The Denver version of this complex has done very well. I’m hoping the same for this too. To me, the proximity to the Convention Center and Toyota Center is critical. The Pavilions, I’m hoping, will make the appearance that Main Street and the Toyota Center/GRB are not far apart. This will hopefully provide an incentive for people to experience all of downtown.
I know folks who worked on this project and there was a huge debate over whether or not the atrium should be open air or enclosed. Some involved with the project were concerned that the open air nature of the project would be detrimental to the success of the project. The owner was convinced that it should be open air. We shall see who was right.
Downtown Denver is very cool for conventions. I’ve look forward to attending one up there every September for the past few years.
Good luck on this working in Houston. I don’t think it will fly. There is life beyond the 9-5 in downtown Denver, not so much in Houston.
My wife and I checked out the Pavilions the other night and LOVE IT! The open air design is awesome (being able to look up at the buildings towering above), and even though it might get warm in the summer… everything is shaded and the stores will have AC. The circular walkways over the streets below are incredible (especially from the 3rd level looking down). We live in Midtown, and yes… we will be spending a lot of money here. The place is still emtpy… but we already like it better than the Galleria!
The Pavilions is making some strong attempts at attracting nightlife, give it time, I feel it will blossom.
Downtown Houston has always had the worst luck. We have tried so many times to enliven downtown. We were having some success with Main St. and the construction of the rail killed it. Before that, Mayor Whitmire tried to do something with Buffalo Bayou. It seems that everytime we get something going we have an economic downturn or something else interferes.